Climate scientist to be quizzed by UK lawmakers

SYLVIA HUI, Associated Press Writer

Academics at a British climate research center at the center of a controversy about the science of global warming defended their work during cross-examination at Parliament Monday, rejecting allegations that they manipulated climate data.

But a former researcher at the University of East Anglia's prestigious Climatic Research Unit admitted he had withheld some scientific data about global temperatures collected from around the world and written some "awful" e-mails to critics who asked to see his data.

The academics were questioned by lawmakers because a cache of e-mails stolen from the research center and leaked online last year appeared to show that scientists stonewalled climate skeptics, tried to pervert the scientific peer review process, and discussed ways to dodge Freedom of Information requests.

Their disclosure energized skeptics of man-made global warming, who seized on the e-mails as proof that scientists were conspiring to overstate the extent to which the earth was warming or making up the phenomenon entirely.

Questioned Monday by parliament's science committee on why the center did not make its raw climate data and methodology public, former UEA climate researcher Phil Jones said the data was withheld because it wasn't "standard practice" to release it.

He also said a small number of countries which supplied the information had refused to let his center publish it. But he insisted that similar data is publicly available from other sources, such as NASA.

Jones - who stepped down from his position as the head of the center after the e-mail scandal broke - admitted that he was wrong to refuse requests from critics to share his data.

"I've obviously written some really awful e-mails, I fully admit that," he said, referring to one e-mail in which he told a skeptic he didn't want to give him data because "people just wanted to find something wrong with it."

Edward Acton, the university's vice chancellor, argued that the e-mails did not undermine the science of global warming.

"There's absolutely nothing hidden ... it's so overly endorsed by scientists, I'm puzzled we should be working on a savoring of doubt when in fact there is no doubt," he told lawmakers and global warming skeptics.

The scientific community appears to agree with Acton - more than 1,700 researchers signed a statement defending the evidence for climate change late last year.

But some scientists said they were concerned the e-mails showed that the climate research center was intolerant to challenges and raised questions about its integrity.

"The e-mails reveal doubts as to the reliability of some of the (temperature) reconstructions and raise questions as to the way in which they have been represented," the Institute of Physics said.

The university has launched two parallel investigations into the climate center and its work, and police are still working to trace the source of the leak.